Topic: Three wide-based water/lemonade/juice jugs for attribution, please

[Bernard C]

   

Click either image for GlassGallery file / enlargement.

Average dimensions — h. 6" 15cm, base d. 5½" 14cm, rim d. 4½" 11.5cm, weight 2lb 2½oz 982g.   Definitely made to imperial measurements.

Dip-moulded with 6 pattern repeat zigzag optic pattern.   Handles randomly positioned — not lined up with the pattern.   One is symmetrical, one slightly right-handed, one very right-handed with the spout positioned ½" 13mm to the left of a centre line through the handle.

Colours — Clear uncoloured crystal, amethyst (not very intense), and an unusual interesting amber with a dash of amethyst.

The uncoloured example is from our kitchen cupboard and is used as a water jug at dinner perhaps three or four times times a week.  It is beautifully designed — looks good, pours well, and is impossible to knock over.

I did wonder whether this jug was originally designed for shipping or railway use.

Any ideas on attribution or date?   Have you seen this jug in other colours?   Have you seen that unusual amethyst amber elsewhere?   Note that my photographs were taken in cloudy daylight with no artificial lighting or flash, and that, as usual, I haven't colour corrected them in any way.

Thanks for your interest,

Bernard C.  

[johnphilip]

At a guess Webb or Stuart ..!

[keith]

First glance I would have said Webbs but the 'waves' are more rounded on Webbs, WF's maybe?

[johnphilip]

Not W/Fs  will give odds 50/1 if ur a betting man .

[jomo99]

  Hi Bernard,

                  I had one of these Jugs in a very stunning Emerald Green Colour, I sold it earlier this year. Like JP I thought Webb or Stuart.

                          Warmest Wishes,

                            John

[nigel benson]

Hi,

These have been on the board before. I have always put them down as Thomas Webb, 1930's and 50's. Not sure that I've ever seen one marked though - which would probably negate Stuart since their byline was something about always being marked. Not strictly true, but by now, if Stuart, I would have expected to have seen a marked piece.

Nigel

[keith]

To compare...Webb vase.

[nigel benson]

??

The photo of softer wave ribbing does not alter my opinion I'm afraid, nor has it when I've handled them over the years. Of course, I could always be wrong 

Nigel

[Anne]

Earlier discussions here:
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,5922.0.html
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,24718.0.html

[Bernard C]

Keith — Your vase only has four pattern repeats, not six.

Anne — Thanks for the extra links.   Useful.   I thought I'd commented on them before!

Nigel — I've proved that these jugs (and tankards and tumblers) don't exist!  :spls:

...   Handles randomly positioned — not lined up with the pattern   ...

I couldn't match this with the products of either Webb or Stuart, as I couldn't envisage any of their glassmakers capable of producing such irregular work.   They would have had to position the handle exactly on either the "A" or the "V" of the zigzag pattern.

It then occurred to me that if the glassmaker lined up his handle with a "V" in the pattern, there would be a corresponding "V" on the opposite side showing him exactly where to put the spout and neatly framing it.

I then imagined myself to be this glassmaker.   It wouldn't have taken me more than two or three jugs to figure out this aid to producing a perfect jug, without in any way increasing the time needed to make one, and possibly significantly reducing the time needed to make the spout as its location was already marked out.   I can't see how any glassmaker could have missed this simple and obvious fact.   Therefore this range could not have been made by a glassmaker.   But it was.   So they can't exist.   Q.E.D.  


The brilliant design combined with the manufacturing peculiarities and the numbers that have emerged on the GMB suggests to me the possibility of the range being designed by an experienced factor like Lang for a big client like Woolworth's, and being made as cheaply as possible.

What do you think?

Bernard C.